Two years in the making, and postponed multiple times due to the persistently mutating Coronavirus pandemic, the international and multi-generational group exhibition named Kansas is finally possible. Originally conceived of as an absurdist prompt to both artists and curators to respond to "Dorothy's return to a drab and technicolor-drained Kansas, wizened and OZ-altered.", a second sense of return began to emerge with every postponement. The project named Kansas - having weathered everything from the January 6th riots, the relentless Covid pandemic, and the return of hot war to European soil - began to suggest an all too real connotation.
 
It has been widely suggested by scholars and critics that Frank L. Baum originally conceived of his Oz books as veiled political allegories for the turbulence of early 20th Century American politics, and the general absurdity of the era. While we as artist-curators, Sam Bornstein and Marcel Hüppauff, have not focused at all on the original context of this narrative and have no such political agenda, we have instead brought together around 30 international artists and allowed them ample farmstead to openly respond to Kansas, 2022.